There was good weather, large crowds and great racing on both days of the Arc weekend.
Saturday's Prix Chaudenay saw Double Major 6/1 get the better of favourite Harbour Wind with Shembala 6/1 third. Sevenna's Knight was fourth and Gallerist disappointing.
The Cadran saw a great win from Trueshan who together with jockey Hollie Doyle seemed to enjoy the sunshine and the atmosphere as Trueshan made light of the 4000m trip. Hollie joked after the race that they could even by thinking of Cheltenham. Moon Wolf 23/1 was the second home but never challenged the winner. Trainer Alan King has done a great job to bring Trueshan back to his best form.
The Royallieu saw only Sea Silk Road make it into the frame from the favoured runners and she won. Diva Donna was second and La Mehana third both at about 1-/1.
The Wildenstein went to the top three in the market but with the order changed as it was Poker Face who won with Isaac Shelby second and Balbek third.
The Dollar saw a really nice horse win – Horizon Dore – who is definitely one for the little black book. Jack Darcy was second and Erevan third.
Sunday the crowd was huge and the weather hot and a bit of a surprise in the Lagardere when Rosallion 6/1 crossed the line ahead of Unquestionable and Beauvatier followed them in third, but a nice start of the day for Richard Hannon Jr and Sean Levey.
The Boussac saw the run of the meeting when Opera Singer won by an easy 5 lengths under hands and heels riding from Ryan Moore. The daughter of Justify has been shortened for the Guineas and the Oaks next year and her ability to seemingly increase her speed the nearer she got to the line was awesome. Rose Bloom was near the front all race and stayed on to finish second with Les Pavots third.
We will do the Arc in a separate section, so the next race was the Opéra and we take back all the negative thoughts we had about Blue Rose Cen as she ran a very good race to be able to win from Jackie Oh and Lumiere Rock was third. Not sure what Christophe Head has done with the filly but she was a different horse in this race to what she had been in her last two outings.
The Abbaye saw a very brave Highfield Princess show her class to win this from two roughies – unfortunately not our roughies – in Perdita 32/1 and Aesop's Fables 43/1 which means that the Irish weren't backing him as that is huge overs for an O'Brien runner.
We didn't get to see a farewell flying dismount from Frankie as Kinross went down to Kelina 28/1 for Carlos Laffon Parias and Maxime Guyon. Shouldvebeenaring was third and we will have to wait a little longer to enjoy some Sauterne as he was not in the frame this time.
